CHIT CHAT: Jonathan Fairbanks, Fuller Craft Museum

Fuller Craft Museum director Jonathan Fairbanks will give a talk Sunday titled Furniture Made in Massachusetts: 1620 to the Present. It anticipates their October exhibit called Made in Massachusetts: Studio Furniture of the Bay State.

By Peggy Mullen

Milford Daily News

By Peggy Mullen

Posted Sep. 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 12, 2013 at 12:11 PM

By Peggy Mullen

Posted Sep. 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 12, 2013 at 12:11 PM

» Social News

Fuller Craft Museum director Jonathan Fairbanks will give a talk Sunday titled Furniture Made in Massachusetts: 1620 to the Present. It anticipates their October exhibit called Made in Massachusetts: Studio Furniture of the Bay State. Fairbanks, who founded the Museum of Fine Arts American decorative arts and sculpture department, and has led the Fuller since April 2012, says the talk will set the scene for the exhibit, which opens Oct. 12.

Q: Please set the scene.

A: What we are doing at Fuller Craft is dealing with the studio (furniture) movement, the 70s to the present. The studio movement has a long trajectory and one of the writers of the catalogue, Gerald Ward of the MFA, a former associate, said those craftsmen of the 17th century would be quite comfortable visiting studio craftsmen in their workshops today, because most of the tools and workmanship are entirely familiar. The tools haven’t changed that much, except for electricity.

Q: Define studio movement.

A: We don’t do manufacturing in the U.S. or Massachusetts anymore, furniture makers all moved away. Gardner, Mass., for example, is no longer what it used to be - a town of manufacturing furniture. It moved south first, then most of the work moved off shore, and what has happened is art students graduating from college, many looking for alternative lifestyles, have decided furniture is how they want to make a living. That’s why we call it studio furniture.

Q: But the Fuller exhibit will not cover the time frame 1620 to the present, right?

A: The unique thing about the furniture show is it’s part of a consortium called the Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture, a collaborative project of Fuller Craft Museum and ten other institution. Winterthur in Delaware already has its Massachusetts exhibit up now. No institution could afford to do it alone or have the space, so a group of people decided let’s divide the pie up into different sectors of time and see what we could do. It was initiated by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

Q: Tell us some examples of pieces in the Fuller exhibit.

A: We will have both works by the avant-guarde and by traditional artists. There are two or ganizations that are members of the consortium, which are traditional, like most of what you see in the North Bennet Street School who are traditionally oriented. They work in period styles. And then there are those who are reaching out toward what to many people is the unknown and the new, and they are extraordinary artisans and very skilled, working with new materials, not necessarily wood. I think the show is pretty well balanced between both viewpoints.

Page 2 of 2 - Q:What is it that elevates utilitarian objects, such as furniture, into an art form?

A: I’ve been a decorative arts curator for over 30 years. I worked at Winterthur and the MFA, and to me there isn’t a distinction between crafted work and art work. Art is a big river, massive with deep currents. My definition is more inclusive that exclusive. Craft work is art if it’s well done. Paintings and sculpture are crafted - it’s not really different. I know many painters would deny it’s crafted, but this is a notion that descends from the Renaissance when artists were trying to distinguish them selves from the trade groups and crafts groups. They were focusing on their ideas instead of the performance, but I don’t make a heck of a lot of distinc tion between the two. The critics who make the distinction are 100 years behind the times. They haven’t heard the message of William Morris. He made it clear 100 years ago that art and craft are the same. It’s all about the human spirit, not what things are made out of. If it were, all works by native Americans would not be classified as art, they’re made of leather, beads and feathers. It’s not the material it’s the message, and the expression of human spirit. I’m a cultural historian, and I don’t make a lot of judgment calls, except whether the object moves me or doesn’t move me.